The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, says policing pro-Palestine protests has cost the state $5m this year and the force should be able to shut them down because of the “huge drain on the public purse”.
Minns has ordered a review of police resources used at the protests, which have taken place in Sydney’s CBD every weekend for the past year following the Hamas attacks on 7 October and Israel’s subsequent strikes on Gaza.
But critics on Tuesday said the premier was continuing to “disregard human rights and civil liberties” and the state was trying to “criminalise protesters”.
Minns told 2GB radio that police resources were “stretched” and he believed taxpayers would want the force to deal with crime instead of patrolling pro-Palestine rallies.
“When you’ve got someone putting in an application every seven days for 51 weeks to march through Sydney streets, this is costing millions of dollars, and I think taxpayers should be in a position to be able to say, we would prefer that money spent on roadside breath testing, domestic violence investigations [and] knife crimes,” the premier said.
“It’s my view that police should be able to be in a position to deny a request for a march due to stretched police resourcing.”
NSW police had a significant presence at Sunday’s pro-Palestine protest in Hyde Park and a vigil on Monday after last week taking supreme court action to try to stop the demonstrations.
Minns had argued the Sunday rally and the candlelight vigil on Monday should not go ahead.
Amal Naser and Josh Lees from the Palestine Action Group, which organises the weekly rallies, accused Minns and “others in the political and media establishment” of participating in a “racist scare campaign”.
“Over the weekend we saw thousands of police deployed in an outrageous and racist law and order campaign which sought to criminalise protesters who have been peacefully rallying for 12 months,” they said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The government is terrified that dissent to Israel’s genocide has never been so large and want to repress us so we cannot utilise the masses and people power to stop this genocide.
“We remind you, that after 7 October [2023] NSW premier Chris Minns declared that we will never march the streets. We defied this and shut down the streets for 52 consecutive weeks.”
The Israeli government maintains its military operations are a legitimate response to the Hamas attacks and has dismissed allegations it is committing genocide as “false” and “outrageous”.
NSW police have charged two men for allegedly displaying Nazi symbols at Sunday’s rally but said overall they were pleased with the behaviour of the crowd – which they estimated at 10,000 people.
In NSW, the police commissioner must approve a permit known as a “form 1” or a “notice of intention to hold a public assembly” lodged by organisers for a protest to be considered lawful.
Minns on Tuesday said police should be able to deny a form 1 application based on the cost to the force of policing the event.
The permit system allows organisers to disobey laws against blocking traffic, for example. Last week, the NSW Council of Civil Liberties president, Lydia Shelly, said it was an “international embarrassment” that “lent itself to litigation”.
Shelly on Tuesday said charging people to stage protests would create a “two-tiered” system where only the wealthy could demonstrate.
“Singling out protests as a financial burden completely flies in the face of government obligations under human rights laws and protections for ordinary citizens,” she said.
“Just when you think that things couldn’t be worse in relation to a premier that seems to completely disregard human rights and civil liberties in this state, an idea like this pops up.”
Minns said the government had to “make decisions about where police are spending their funds”.
“If this is taking place every single weekend, it’s coming at the expense of some other law enforcement across the state,” he said.
“If you’re putting on a rock concert on the weekend … you would have to pay NSW police in order to keep the public safe.”
NSW police provides most policing services free of charge but says some services “go beyond these responsibilities” so it charges clients a fee.
The system, known as user-pays policing, requires major sporting events, festivals and concerts to pay themselves for police resources.
NSW police have previously been accused of “price gouging” and operating a “rort” that threatened the viability of music festivals because they charged thousands of dollars more than their counterparts in other states to patrol events.
The state opposition leader, Mark Speakman, said the Minns Labor government should change the law to impose user-pays policing charges on all repeat protests.
“Every dollar that’s spent on policing serial protests is a dollar that could be going towards improving the lives of NSW families,” the Liberal leader said on Tuesday.
The NSW Greens justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said Minns knew the organisers of the weekly pro-Palestine rallies wouldn’t have the means to cover user-pays fees.
“Threatening to interfere with the right to protest creates a dangerous environment where important voices of democracy are strangled out of existence,” she said.
